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Government consults on short-terms changes to the planning system in addition to those set out in the Planning White Paper.

The Government is consulting on shorter-term changes to planning policy and regulations In England. These are in addition to the wider reform to the planning system as set out in the Planning White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’. The consultation sets out several proposals which aim to improve the effectiveness of the current system. Many of the proposals are technical in nature and may, therefore, be of limited interest to local councils; others, however, are of more interest. The four main proposals are:

• changes to the standard method for assessing local housing need, which as well as being a proposal to change guidance in the short term has relevance to proposals for land supply reforms set out in Planning for the Future;
• securing of First Homes, sold at a discount to market price for first time buyers, including key workers, through developer contributions in the short term until the transition to a new system;
• temporarily lifting the small sites threshold below which developers do not need to contribute to affordable housing, to up to 40 or 50 units to support SME builders as the economy recovers from the impact of Covid-19;
• extending the current Permission in Principle to major development so landowners and developers now have a fast route to secure the principle of development for housing on sites without having to work up detailed plans first.

Further information can be found here.